Finding Inspiration

The other night I heard the little beep sound one hears from one's phone signaling a message has come through. It went something like this: Is this yours? with a photo attached of something the sender had seen at their local garden center. I replied that it was not, and who am I messaging with?

Turns out it was my friend Carol Kufeldt from the Seattle area, and the photograph showed an interesting collage. Thank you Carol, I took it from there! Many readers of this blog will know that I've been making collages of all sorts of images for a long time. That said, I'd yet to make one with images in the same color family, and after looking several times at the one she sent, I decided to make one of my own!

 Before you point it out, I already know that there is some variation, however, I was bound and determined to use the railing from Brighton Beach on the upper right, so I tried to incorporate the rusty color more than once. I kind of liked how it turned out, and thought perhaps someone else might too, so I put it in my weekly order for baby canvases. It's been quite a long time since I've shown a collage, so why not?

From there I included it in my monthly upload of images to SunDance, and within minutes I heard back from Alajandra, asking if I would be willing to make more using a color theme. You bet I would. I like nothing more than making things. :) Red, purple, orange, darker blue, black and gray theme, yellow, and green--I made them all.

Apparently they are heading to California next week to meet with buyers, and she was anxious to have printed copies before the trip. Well, she sure got them. Looking over the collages, I discovered that many of you are in there too. Above is from trips to England and Scotland (red door), so there is the Matt and Tom aspect (happy wedding day). The red chair--Jane and Ray, Tom's folks, took us to a lovely restaurant near their home, and that chair was in one of the rooms. That is one of the things I so love about photography, tangible evidence of my love for my friends and family. And yes, once again, I know the bike has a bunch of blue, but I'm using it for a wee bit of tension in the collage.

So, that took up a good part of Wednesday. Another big part was the RAIN and do I mean rain!

In less than 24 hours, in our neck of the woods, nearly seven inches of rain fell. Of course without my trusty rain gauge I'd have never known, so if you like to know what's happening in your neck of the woods, I suggest you pick up a rain gauge. Our newspaper reported that we got something like two inches, and perhaps at the airport that was the case, but it sure makes you wonder, say like, you look up average rainfall somewhere, and believe what you read.

Oh yeah, my knee is just fine. The WalMart manager called to check on me, I'm sure hoping I'd say I was fine, and gauging me to see if I was the type of person who would sue the store for having a pallet jack left in a walkway. I'm not. And my new flowers are planted.

Look who must have been hiding in the pool before it got so full. Generally, they get up under the lip of the deck, but a full pool makes that a little challenging.

Although the cardinal nest appeared to not yield any chicks, I believe we've already established I was incorrect in that assumption. So, so fun watching the birds.

Thursday I spent quite a bit of time doing errands that had gone undone due to the torrential rainstorms which are not so fun to drive in if not absolutely necessary. As is my custom, gift cards languish, so not only did I have my Bloomingdales gift card given to me by Dave and Michelle for Christmas, a second one from Mother's Day was in my purse. After looking at some girly stuff, I decided instead to buy a new Sanduko knife, the 5" size. For more than ten years, the 7" has been my workhorse knife, and I thought I'd add to my collection of one.

After the purchase I had about $7.00 left to spend. What, pray tell, costs that at Bloomingdales? Not much, but I did spend $2.50 on something I've never seen before.

A first for me, although I must say, it pretty much tastes the same as tap water.

At Big Lots I saw this display, and thinking of my readers who have curious minds, as in, what the heck are those Necco flavors anyway?, I took this.

While Bruce was enjoying the chocolate roll I purchased for him I asked him how much he thought it cost. Lo and behold, he nearly guessed it! 36 cents for the roll. Now let's compare that to the box of water, shall we?

Speaking of water, while at the library I filled up a water bottle at the fountain situated in the Young Adult section. Well now, look what I saw!

Carolyn Keene, indeed!

Well, there you go, I've written a post without an owl picture. Hard to believe isn't it? That said, I believe now that the little one has come down from the trees directly in front of me, the spell has been broken, and I can once again ride my bike any old place I feel like it. Well, maybe just one more...

Have an excellent weekend my friends,

Gail

p.s. names on there to protect my intellectual property!